


the left side of paradise

by poetic_ivy



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Introspection, Light Angst, POV Aaron Minyard, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Sort of? - Freeform, also me: i am going to ignore very very small elements of canon for the sake of my own ideas, and also the random number of people on the exy team that year, dw tho when i say small elements i am literally only referring to how they meet, i mean i think its fluff at least lmao, me: this is precanon and absolutely compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29124633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetic_ivy/pseuds/poetic_ivy
Summary: Aaron and Katelyn stood like that, in silence, in uncertainty, for a long moment, eyes on the brightly lit dorm building in front of them. They stood in the shadows just outside the light’s reach, able to reach out and dip a hand into the gold of manmade warmth, but keeping out of it, as if it would break the natural spell of darkness and moonlightand vulnerability.The thing of it all was this: Aaron Minyard had no shortage of people connected to his life, and yet his life was so short onconnections.
Relationships: Katelyn/Aaron Minyard
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12
Collections: AFTG Mixtape Exchange 2021





	the left side of paradise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ExyCherry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExyCherry/gifts).



> surprise! i am not dead! i am waltzing back into your lives with content courtesy of [this side of paradise by coyote theory](https://open.spotify.com/track/79EkGysjP2dL5GdpeQjRxT?si=CeiY7Nt6QVWxV-QlF3GG5g) and the aftg mixtape exchange. 
> 
> jupiter darling i was very excited to get you and had SO much fun with your song choice. we haven't talked in a hot minute but i hope you are doing well and that u enjoy!! 
> 
> i owe a HUGE thank you to wyverning (beta angel of my heart), polzkadotz, ihaveacleverfandomurl (second beta angel of my heart), and silveriss for cheering me on the past couple of days and helping me polish this up. it truly takes a village around here. <3

The first time Aaron Minyard ever saw her, she was sitting underneath the eave of Palmetto State’s science building. It was wet and rainy and cold, but she wore a thin cardigan as if she didn’t care about the wind sweeping through the breezeway or the dampness of wet concrete soaking through her no-doubt designer jeans. 

Aaron hadn’t paid much mind to her — aside from the fleeting disbelief of how someone could study outside while being so terribly dressed for the weather — and forgot about her within seconds, mind rotating through his schedule for the day. 

But she was there again the following day. The cardigan was replaced with a bright orange university hoodie, a line of overpriced fashion that Aaron knew from personal experience wasn’t really that warm. The purple tinge of her fingers, wrapped around a highlighter whose cap she had clamped tightly between her teeth, testified to that, a fine-boned ode to the cold. 

She drew her legs back as Aaron passed by so that she wouldn’t trip him, but did so without looking up, gaze locked on the page she was studiously  _ not _ highlighting, eyes far away. 

From then on, once she’d entered Aaron’s orbit, she seemed to be everywhere. In the halls, in the student cafeteria, in the library, in the one coffee shop off campus whose coffee was actually as decent as their WiFi. Sometimes she was with friends — a gang of cheerleaders and students that Aaron recognized as fellow biomed majors — but more often than not, she was alone, the cap to a highlighter or pen always clamped between her teeth like a cigar. 

Some days, her gaze was as hazy and distant as that first day Aaron found her sitting in the rain, hand tapping her paper with the uncapped pen, spattering freckles across the page. 

Other days, she was focused and intense, hand moving the pen rapidly across her notebook, mouth twisting silent words around the cap that remained constantly in her mouth. It was charming, in a way. 

There was a familiarity in the way she moved, the way she said  _ excuse me _ when they passed by too close to each other in the cramped hallways of the biology wing. Sometimes Aaron would look up during Exy practice to find her already looking at him from where the cheerleaders were going through their own routines, gaze lost and contemplative and burning through him. 

But even with all of the looks, the subtle smiles across hallways and exchanged frustrated eye-rolls over the vending machines in one of the student lounges — if that had been it, it would have been it. Familiar gazes amongst familiar territory from unfamiliar-yet-familiar eyes. 

But it wasn’t. There was a brightness to her, soft and comforting like an overworn sweater. Aaron saw every shimmering thread and caught how in the right light, the threadbare wash of exhaustion frayed out in fuzzy fibers, pilling up under her skin as they studied. Alone in the library, her head would pillow onto her textbooks, hair spooled around her in a dark red halo, and she would be asleep. 

It was so different to her enthusiasm during cheer practice, which Aaron definitely did  _ not _ watch a little closer now than he had before. There, she was loud, always moving, always shifting through routines fluidly, always shouting encouragement to her friends and letting out easy peals of laughter. Aaron wanted to sew that sound into the air around him, aching for the way it made breathing seem easy even through the tedious Exy drills their haughty new assistant coach had handcrafted for them with scorn. 

Throughout the semester, she and Aaron continued their dance. Always from a distance. Always within the safe hours of the day, the sane hours of the evening, the respectful distance maintained when living in wordless comradery with a stranger. 

-

Finals came, and Aaron had never felt so stressed in his life. He had known stress, known it intimately in the bundle of complicated emotion wrought by his high school years, but the stress of finals as a pre-med student was different. The stakes felt higher. The pressure to succeed, overwhelming.

He spent most of his waking hours in the library, powering through notes and reviews and essays with copious amounts of caffeine and protein bars and stolen glances at the girl three tables over, who lived life in the edges of Aaron’s dreams. 

It was nearing one in the morning, but she was just as awake as he was, and something about that determination always filled him with steel and motivation. 

_ Iron sharpens iron _ , he heard his aunt’s voice murmur in the back of his mind.

The girl had brought a laptop this time, but the cap of her pink highlighter was still in her mouth, snapped onto the wrong end of it so the felt tip could undoubtedly go dry as it hung limply between her teeth.

Aaron wondered how many of those she’d gone through this year. 

He’d almost asked her, once. Had passed by in the coffeeshop one day and seen her fruitlessly scribbling at her paper, the ink run dry. He’d started to make a wry remark, ready to offer her one of his own writing utensils. But then she had taken the cap from between her lips, and stuck the felt end of the highlighter to her tongue. 

She’d glanced up from her studies at the same moment, and the odd eye contact that ensued had painted a strange wash of hot and cold over Aaron’s skin. He’d quickly turned away, beelining for the exit.

He’d forgotten his coffee that day, and something about the entire interaction had spurred him to carry his own thermos from then on. He told himself it was to save money. The coffee kiosks throughout campus — whose beverages were usually phenomenally burnt — were far cheaper than any of the local shops. The chance to not face a repeat of the dry highlighter situation was only a small benefit.

The thermos now sat on the table Aaron had taken up residence at, empty for hours now. He blearily picked it up anyway, shaking it a little, tipping it to his mouth and hoping for at least one cold drop to remain, a small relief from the pages of notes and flashcards in front of him. He scanned the wall next to him as he did so, eyes flitting over academic success posters and flyers for job fairs, student clubs, and a random local carnival promising celebration and relief for the closing of finals season. 

Aaron thought it seemed kind of stupid, advertising over-priced games and rides to a bunch of broke students, but what did he know? Not everyone went to Palmetto on a scholarship. 

He set his truly-empty coffee thermos down, and startled to see the girl had packed her things up and was marching towards his table, steps erratic but confident and sure. Aaron’s heart did a strange start-and-restart when he realized she wasn’t turning away to head towards either of the exits. 

She reached his table, and her gaze was more intense up close. For some god-unknown reason, Aaron was reminded of faded traffic lights. Worn out around the edges, a little hazy and over-worked, but still glowing, still giving their best, still shining green in the dark — singing words like  _ go, come again, it is safe now. _

She sat across from him, restless energy at war with the bags under her eyes. 

“I see you around a lot,” she said. Her voice was soft and low, and Aaron couldn’t help but marvel at the feather-light quality, even if he knew it was because she was whispering.

“Yeah,” he stupidly replied. 

She smiled. “Finals are kicking your ass, huh?” 

Aaron’s weary thoughts couldn’t gain enough traction to understand the conversation, head spinning like wheels in the mud, but she didn’t need to know that. “Maybe I don’t talk much to begin with.”

“Maybe. I suppose I wouldn’t know. Though I  _ would _ venture to guess that you always have a lot going on in that big ol’ brain of yours.” 

She spoke about him like she knew him, and he wasn’t sure why that both rankled him and made him feel reassured. Maybe it was the implication that she assumed he was just as easily known as he had assumed her. Maybe it was the confirmation he wasn’t the only one who had been making observations over the course of the semester. 

“What makes you think that?” he asked, keeping up the charade. 

“You just have smart vibes. That and my roommate was your lab partner this semester.”

Aaron thought back to Marissa’s gobsmacked amazement over his notes system and extensive Quizlet flashcard database, and knew without a doubt that the bubbly — but thankfully, for his GPA, competent — cheerleader had shown his materials off to her redheaded, permanently exhausted roommate. 

“So,” he said, feeling something in his stomach twist. “You came over here for Chem help?”

“Eh.” She waved her hand. “I was thinking more along the lines of coffee.” 

Aaron stilled, a flush creeping up his neck. 

She continued on, shrugging. “I’ve been here for over five hours, and you were already here at that point. You may have a big brain, but it’s no good to you if you let it turn to goop without stirring it every once in a while. We should get some fresh air.” 

“You — you want me to stir my brain goop?” he asked dumbly, uncertain if this was friendly teasing, or this was flirting. It felt like flirting, but no one had ever flirted with him by telling him he was a soup-for-brains genius.

She grinned, standing up and throwing her bag back over her shoulder, exhaustion seemingly vanishing with his lack of refusal. “Exactly. With that big jumbo thermos I see you haul around campus. Maybe the wide open expanse of the courtyard, if you feel like walking a girl around?” 

Aaron flushed and blinked at her, then at the suddenly exhausting pile of books around him. He felt his eyes cross at the thought of studying anymore tonight, and sighed. “Okay. One coffee. But—” 

He stood and ignored how the several inches of height she had on him made him feel. “I have a condition.” 

She tilted her head at him, picking up one of his notebooks and scanning over the diagrams in the margins. “And that is?”

“The girl tells me her name.” 

Her lips tugged and the dance of a smile in her eyes grew stronger. “Easier than I expected, honestly.” She closed his notebook gently and handed it to him, keeping her grip on it for a moment longer than necessary when he took it. Her gaze held onto his just as lingeringly. “Katelyn Matthews.” 

Katelyn Matthews. Aaron swirled her name in his mouth, never opening it to speak but instead, letting the words settle like soda against his teeth, fizzy on the soft insides of his cheeks, tingling in his gums. He swallowed it down, and felt the warm crackle slip away down his throat. He nodded in acknowledgment, praying she couldn’t tell how dry his tongue felt with the weight no longer on it. “Aaron Minyard.” 

She snorted softly, but didn’t say  _ I know, silly, _ didn’t say  _ you’re on the Exy team, dumbass, I know who you are. _ She just helped him gather his books up and said, “Nice to finally meet you, Aaron.”

-

At the campus coffee kiosk, Aaron was incredibly surprised to see Katelyn buy a plain black coffee, no sugar, no cream. He’d raised an eyebrow at her, but she’d only shrugged and taken a large sip, maintaining eye contact through the steam rising from the top of her paper cup, expression unchanging. 

They took their coffees outside with them after that, walking aimlessly around campus, conversation coming surprisingly easily, despite only having actually spoken for the first time that night. He could tell the semester was wearing on her, the late hour of the night making her forget words and stumble over sentences, but she took it all with a laughing ease, waving her arms and making fun of herself in a way that somehow didn’t even seem self-deprecating. 

He listened to her ramble, and surprised himself by answering her questions as she asked them, sometimes with more words than he would normally deem necessary. He  _ liked _ talking with her. He was exhausted, and uncertain of what he was doing — but so was she, and that was something he knew they could both understand about each other. Despite how hard she was trying to appear nonchalant and confident, Aaron could see the way Katelyn snuck glances at him after making a statement, checking for reactions, looking for the cracks in the veneer that would tell her where she had broken through the shell a little too aggressively. He hoped he was being engaging, but wasn’t sure if he was succeeding. 

How did you know if you were engaging too much, or not enough, when it came to walking in the fucking  _ moonlight _ with a girl you’ve secretly been yearning to connect with for almost half a year?

Aaron was wrestling with the typical spiel he gave to near-strangers when it came to why he'd decided to go into medicine when they unwittingly approached the Exy court. He looked up at it and felt something cold grip at his hair and tug him under, a sudden wash of dishwater gone stale. He lost whatever Katelyn was saying in response to him, twisting his head slightly to look back as they passed by, feet scuffing against the pavement while his eyes scanned over the parking lot. 

The black GS was undeniably there. Parked under a streetlight. 

Sitting as empty as Aaron always felt. 

He suddenly didn’t want to talk anymore. He didn’t know whatever Katelyn had last said. He could feel her looking at him, but he had decided not to look at her anymore. Not tonight. Maybe not ever? Who fucking knew. Aaron certainly didn’t. 

Except. Well. 

That was a lie. 

He knew he would. He would look. Again, and again. He would pass Katelyn in the halls and they would acknowledge each other, like they always did, and that would be that. He would look, but he would never speak, because tonight was a fluke born of that liminal space that finals carved into them. He would reflect back on tonight, and ache with the knowledge that there was someone out there who made the emptiness feel less empty. Less oppressive. Less like emptiness.

The thing of it all was this: Aaron Minyard lived in a dorm of four, with a family of three, on an Exy team of thirteen. He had classmates and acquaintances and that one homeless man he always made sure to let into the cafeteria whenever he saw him wandering campus. Aaron Minyard had no shortage of people connected to his life, and yet his life was so short on  _ connections. _

The thing of it all was this: Aaron Minyard was weak. He was weak to his own whims and he was weak to pretty girls who showed up around every corner like the sun on the horizon at dawn. And, most critically, he was weak to his brother’s addiction to control. 

The thing of it all was this: Andrew’s singular grip on Aaron’s life had been unwavering since they were thirteen. He was the clamp holding Aaron’s hopes and dreams together throughout the three years Andrew spent in juvie. 

The vice that threatened to smash them to a pulp in the four years since. 

Aaron’s overwhelming anger at Andrew, at their mother, at himself and at anyone he let close to him was more than enough reason to make sure to not let anyone close, to stumble through the emptiness alone, wading towards a normal life guided only by the existing tethers at his back. 

No one else deserved to be bound to another Minyard with an attitude problem and a knack for bringing catastrophe to anyone that came within a ten-foot-radius. Even if it were in a manner less violent than the first. 

Katelyn seemed to sense how Aaron’s mood had dipped after seeing the court, but she didn’t ask. She seemed content to let the silence ring, bells drawing them home, as they made their way down the sidewalk. For someone so talkative, she took to it well, and Aaron was uncomfortably forced to remember her tired eyes, that the smooth cheerfulness of her countenance seemed like a well-manufactured mask. He wasn’t sure how he had let himself forget. 

He felt guilty, and disgusted at himself for shutting down. He tried to at least pay attention to her, to forget they ever saw the evidence of Andrew and his stupid new quavering shadow at the Court. But he couldn’t. Couldn’t stop thinking about words and promises and the heavy grasp of a deal made in desperation, a last ditch attempt to heal  _ something, _ to soothe the same magnified ache lying under the surface of his overheated skin at this very moment in time. 

Aaron didn’t register how long he stewed in this, but it was long enough that they made their way up Perimeter Road, towards the dorms of Fox Tower, towards separation and sleep and Aaron’s feverish knowledge that this could happen again, if he’d let it. He finds himself suspended on the cusp of being jolted awake, knowing what is coming, waiting for it to happen, yet never feeling the sting on his cheek, never hearing the slap of a palm to his skin. 

He and Katelyn stood like that, in silence, in uncertainty, for a long moment, eyes on the brightly lit dorm building in front of them. They stood in the shadows just outside the light’s reach, able to reach out and dip a hand into the gold of manmade warmth, but keeping out of it, as if it would break the natural spell of darkness and moonlight  ~~and vulnerability.~~

Aaron shuddered and looked away from the Tower. He studied the fuzzed edges of Katelyn’s jacket sleeve in the dark. The soft plaid was almost green in the darkness, nearly the quiet green of her eyes. 

He took a breath. "This was—“

“Could I—“

They both stopped, snapping their attention to each other. Katelyn let out a little laugh and despite himself, Aaron felt the ghost of a smile try and crawl up his throat. “You first.” 

“No, you, I insist.” 

Aaron shook his head.  _ This wasn’t a good idea _ laid heavy on his tongue, but he let it shake away. “It’s not important.” 

He forced an awkward sort of gentle elbow jab against her arm, unsure as to why he did it, when he would rather die than force that sort of awkward comforting gesture with anyone else. “ _ I _ insist.” 

She scowled at him playfully, and did a little hop, turning to face him as she moved in front of him, fully immersed into the glow of the streetlamp. She stood with confidence, but there was uncertainty in her voice as she asked, “Could I get your number?” 

The twisting sense of empty yearning opened further, and Aaron didn’t know how to close it, how to even begin sewing it shut. 

“I can’t date.” He felt numb as he said it. 

Katelyn nodded, once, then twice, awkward but strong. “Okay. That’s okay. We can be friends, then? Friends can care about each other, too.” 

“You  _ want _ to care about me?” The words slip free before Aaron even realized they had a chance to form. 

“Don’t we already care about each other?” 

Aaron’s brain froze, shutting down in a moment of panic. He flicked his eyes to meet hers and looked away again, heart hammering a fast paced rhythm in his chest, the workmen keeping his body going striking their mallets double-time against his lungs.

Her voice softened, perhaps sensing his fragility. “I cared about you from the moment I saw you, tired and lost in the sea of celebration at the first Exy game you won this year. ”

“We only won one game.”

Katelyn nodded sagely. “A misfortune that will be rectified next year, I’m sure.”

Aaron’s confusion broke enough for him to blush and sputter. “Who talks like that? Which Jane Austen novel did you wander out of?” 

She shrugged. “Find the things you enjoy in life, and then revel in them.” 

“Talking like you’re navigating towards a proposal to a less fortunate soul who — despite their position, somehow managed to catch your attention — brings you joy?”

“I don’t know about less fortunate, but why wouldn’t it? There’s plenty of perks.”

“Really.”

She tilted her head at him, lips pressed into an off-kilter smug little smile. “Absolutely. Take this right here, one of my favorites: distracting cute boys.”

“Oh, I’m cute, am I?”

Katelyn snorted. “You think you’re not cute? You think I don’t know what cute is? You think I would ask a boy out if I didn’t think he was cute? You’re wrong on all counts, pretty boy.”

Aaron didn’t realize he was smiling, however small, until it had faded off again at her words. “Katelyn, I really can’t—“

She held up a hand, silencing him. “Look. I get it. But you don’t have to be dating, or in love, or anything like that in order to care about someone, or find them cute. You can ask someone out and not harbor any bad feelings when they tell you no. Every friend I have is beautiful and I make sure they hear about it. What makes you think you’d be any different?”

She dropped her hand back to her side, tugging on the hem of her shirt to straighten it out. “We don’t even have to be friends, really. Although, I would like it. Being friends. Dates would be nice, but if being friends is all that you want, being friends is all I will ask for.” 

Aaron wasn’t sure how to respond, and looked away, up into the yellow glow of the streetlamp.  _ Caution, slow down, wait, turn back, turn back, turn back. _

He shook his head. “Being friends with a ‘tired lost boy’ — by your words — sounds incredibly boring for you.” 

“It will be equally as boring for you, if it’s any consolation.” 

Aaron could feel her gaze against his cheek, felt the ghost of a touch in it. Her words were quiet, and while her tone was teasing, they felt… serious. Vulnerable. Factual.

He heard her sigh, and then she spoke again. “I think I’ve been lost and tired for most of my life, but finally being away from home and having to take care of everything myself has only made it worse.” 

Aaron snuck a glance at her. Her hands were waving around, marking strange yet mesmerizing patterns in the air as she talked. Brushing through her hair, tapping against her teeth, making the curling sound of her  _ s’ _ s bounce and drag. 

“The truth of it is, you can be in a sea of people, and still feel just as lonely as you ever did. You can go out with friends, even, and still be lonely. Because somehow, even among friends, even among family, you can still feel like an outsider, like you don’t belong, and that’s something they don’t always understand.” 

The tug in Aaron’s chest cut through the noise in his head, pulling it to stillness, twisting the rhythms and the motions and the panic into something aching and slow and mournful. How could a girl as pretty and successful and as well-liked as Katelyn, wind up having the exact same hang-ups as Aaron — a fuck-up, a former addict, a broken boy with broken memories living in a broken house? 

_ Never judge a book by its cover. _

And yet, Aaron had been starting to see the tears in that cover, in that facade, in that presentation for months. Knew unconsciously where to find the shape of them, hidden in the posture of a queen, because he tried to painstakingly paint his own over with energy drinks and good grades and a false sense of normalcy. 

Katelyn continued, and Aaron realized she had caught him looking. They held eye contact for the briefest of moments, before she was looking away, up at the light-polluted sky and its barely visible stars hiding behind dirt-orange clouds under a weak and fallow moon. She glowed beneath it, swathed in light both natural and unnatural and wholly beautiful. 

“Aren’t you lonely? Don’t you feel that same yawning hole around you in a crowd? Like you’re the only one there, existing in the bubble of a magnet that draws you in and pushes everyone else away, like it’s polarized to your own self-doubt? To that sense of being the imposter in your own life, sleepwalking through every day?”

The empty ache in Aaron’s chest surged,  _ recognized, recognized, recognized.  _

Katelyn’s voice, going a little thick around the edges, was earnest. “Every time I look at you, I feel drawn in. Like our magnets are aligned, like I can find my reflection there. I’ve never been brave enough to talk to you, and yet here I am, spilling all this shit to you, because somehow, I think you’re the same as me.”

Her eyes were on him again, green and intense and glittering. 

He couldn’t look away if he tried. 

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is a shit time to try and make any sort of bond with anyone. But I’ve learned that having the people you care about around you can help, astronomically.” She huffed a quiet laugh, tilting her chin defiantly. “Dating may be a bad idea, but friends never are.” 

_ If being friends is all that you want, being friends is all I will ask for. _

“And,” The words felt heavy and wrong in his mouth, but Aaron asked anyway, slowly. A sticky flat soda poured out on the ground. “If I didn’t want to be friends?”

She smiled ruefully at that, and reached out a careful hand to take his. Her fingers were cold, and it made Aaron’s skin jump. 

“We wouldn’t be here right now.” 

He closed his eyes, and let himself brush a thumb over the hand holding his. “We wouldn’t,” he agreed, feeling uncertain and surprisingly wobbly on his feet. “I would have told you to fuck off the moment you sat down at my table.”

She was right, on nearly every count. Was he really this transparent? Could everyone read him so easily, or did Katelyn have her own personal  _ Aaron Minyard Rosetta Stone _ tucked away in her sleeve, in a pocket somewhere?

_ He wasn’t sure why that both rankled him and made him feel reassured. _

Aaron still didn’t know if this feeling was anger, relief, a combination of both, or something else entirely. But when Katelyn laughed, the emotion in her eyes as complex and contrasting as the red of her hair, of her mouth, the final mode of the stoplight blaring like an insect trap, drawing him in yet screaming at him to  _ stop, cease your advances, come no further lest you be destroyed _ — well. Had Aaron ever cared what would or would not destroy him?

Katelyn laughed, softly, and Aaron let her tug on his hand, finally pulling him into the circle cast by the streetlamp. “So,” she said, “If I asked for that number again, would you tell me to fuck off?”

_Danger._ That was the feeling. It was adrenaline and addiction and the allure of the forbidden, the ache of accepting there may be nothing else that could ever fill the void inside. 

Aaron let her pull him into the light and forced himself not to look up at the dorms, at the glow of the windows or out towards the empty parking space of the Tower lot that his brother’s black GS could pull into at any moment. He let the dangerous dancing jolt of Katelyn’s hand still brushing his settle the ache in his heart. 

“You know, I think I could make another exception.” 

-

Back in the dorm, snug in his bed and waiting for his cousin Nicky to turn the fucking lights off because no one on this entire campus went to bed at a normal hour, Aaron’s phone buzzed. 

**_hey! this is katelyn. thanks again for taking a chance on me. promise you won’t regret it, or it’s your number back at no interest charged!_ **

_ i dont think it works that way _

_ but thanks it was fun _

**_perhaps not, but it made you smile, didn’t it?_ **

_ maybe _

Aaron hesitated, uncertain if he wanted to follow through, but with shaking hands typed out: 

_ theres a carnival in town next week _

_ would u want to go  _

Katelyn’s response was immediate.

**_is there a ferris wheel?_ **

_ …its a carnival?  _

**_fair enough! we’ll just have to find out i guess! this is a just-friends-date, correct?_ **

Aaron turned his face into his pillow, and smiled. 

_ a friend-date _

_ yeah _

**Author's Note:**

> me: writes a witty redhead katelyn who drinks black coffee  
> me: has aaron drinking a giant sized caramel macchiato in first draft of this  
> kay: eli this is just het andreil
> 
> comments are appreciated and endear you to me permanently, as would a shy or not-shy slide into my dms on [twitter](https://twitter.com/elia_nna) and [tumblr.](https://keys-crows-dreamers-scones.tumblr.com/) regardless of conversation or kudos: i love u all anyway and thank you for reading!


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